15 Years and Still Going Strong

Junior Homecoming, 1994, approximately 4 months after we started going out.
Dear Tyler,

15 years ago today, May 29, 1994, I sat in your Camaro, holding your hand as you drove down Village Green Drive and I finally said something like, "yeah, OK" or "uh-huh" or "yep" or "alright" when you asked me out the second week in a row. You know, something seriously romantical, like all the best love stories. And the rest, as they say, is history. At the time, I KNEW we would end up getting married, even if it took you a while to come around to the idea. (Because every 16-year old guy wants his girlfriend to be talking about future wedding bells and babies. Now that I think of it, I am surprised you didn't run the other way!) And I had no idea what a wonderful journey this would be and how amazing our life is. Not always easy, but just what He planned for us from before Creation. All my days were written down before one of them came to be...

Like Helen Hunt running out to Tom Hanks in Cast Away, "You are the love of my life!" {Except that you were never lost at sea, and I didn't marry someone else, but you can picture that same rush of emotion as she runs out after him in the pouring down rain in the middle of the night.} You have been there for me whenever I have needed you, and you love me the way God intends husbands to love their wives. We aren't the same people we are today as we were back then - Praise the Lord for that! - but we have grown together - and grown-up together - you and I, on this journey. Our journey hasn't taken us on a whirlwind tour of Europe or Africa or Asia or South America (yet) but it has brought us closer and more in love with each other and with the Lord each passing day. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth...

Like I say to you most every year, thank you for sharing the Gospel with me time and time again in high school, when I was hurting, lost, and in need of a Savior. Even if we never dated or got married or moved to Nashville or had Maggie I would still love Jesus and be counted as one of His children because He chose you to tell me about Him. I am blessed amazingly by that alone. But, BONUS! I got to marry you, too. You say that most of the time you feel like you married up, but I'm telling you the feeling is mutual. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, surely I have a delightful inheritance...

Right now we are not on the mountiantop but have to pick our way through a deep valley, but we are in this together.* I will not do everything perfectly, and I cringe whenever you say I am a good wife because I see how poor a job I do most of the time, but I love you so much, and I can't imagine my life without you. I know the stress of work and long hours at the office and the economy and being the provider takes its toll on you, but we are where we are because this is where God wants us to be. I will not be afraid of where God has put us. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me...

My soul mate, I love you. Here's to another 50 years of wonderfulness. Love - Melissa

*I would like to clarify this just by saying that Tyler's got some unresolved health issues at the moment, we as a couple are fine.